Thoughts for a Tax Day

What if, instead of making all income taxes due today, the deadline was always the day before Election Day? Would that change the dynamics of the current presidential and congressional races?

Perhaps it would make tax reform a topic of discussion, which it certainly is not at the moment.

Despite the current economic slowdown, the United States remains the wealthiest, most prosperous nation on earth. Its method of taxing income, however, is a curious oddity. It is designed in such a way as to be both incredibly complex and, for many people, a benign irritant.

The tax code is literally tens of thousands of pages long. We doubt any one human being knows or understands it all. And yet a mostly autonomous Internal Revenue Service can threaten large fines or jail time to anyone who calculates his or her obligations wrong. Because of this, about two-thirds of Americans hire professionals to do the work, which also costs time and money.

But the federal government was clever to allow people to deduct their estimated tax obligations from their paychecks, making the overall burden almost invisible. Because of this, a lot of people look forward to this time of year because they expect sizable refunds, never stopping to think that they really have been overpaying and allowing Washington to keep the difference for a while, interest-free.

Former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Taxes are the price we pay for civilized society." He was right. We suspect that the main reason most Americans don't revolt against taxes is because they understand the need to fund the armed forces, national parks and other programs, despite reports of waste. But to work at its best, a tax system should be accountable to the people who pay.

The Heritage Foundation reports that the federal government will spend $25,117 per household this year, which is $4,300 more than in 2001, adjusted for inflation. Of that expenditure, $3,513 represents deficit spending — an amount above what the government collects from each house.

The numbers are mind-numbing, just as the tax code is impossible to understand. Yet it's safe to say many Americans can't remember the first time they heard a politician talk about tax simplification or the last time they heard one present a realistic plan to make it happen.

That's because any serious move toward an overhaul would meet strong opposition from interest groups who would stand to lose from having their preferred status removed. They are the ones who truly pay attention to tax laws.

That might change if everyone had to drop their returns off on the way to the ballot box.